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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Mon Oncle (1958)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Fishy

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Mon Oncle on DVD

Jacques Tati left behind the freewheeling style of his vacation movie Mr. Hulot's Holiday for this more intricately designed clash between man and technology. Tati plays the title uncle who visits his family in their ultra-modern and ridiculously funny house. A spouting fountain, a gate that opens automatically and other devices misbehave. And of course, Mr. Hulot is the ultimate representation of man-made humanity, lurching and bumbling, all diagonals and lines (his slightly-bent-forward posture, his pipe, etc.). This great film won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but Tati's next, Playtime, goes even further. The Criterion Collection's DVD of Mon Oncle comes with an introduction by Monty Python's Terry Jones as well as bonus short film.

Starring: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Lucien Fregis, Betty Schneider, Jean-Francois Martial, Dominique Marie, Yvonne Arnaud, Adelaide Danieli, Alain Becourt, Regis Fontenay, Claude Badolle, Max Martel, Nicolas Bataille
Written by: Jacques Tati, Jean L'Hote, Jacques Lagrange
Directed by: Jacques Tati
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Language: French with English subtitles
Running Time: 117 minutes
Date: June 14, 2001